Things They Said...

The fire alarm went off at 8:30am

Mommy: " Noooooooo."

Elias & Micah excitedly said: "Fire alarm. Firefighter come." " Fire alarm no scare. Firefighter turn off fire alarm."

After bath-

Micah: "Micah a bird (his hooded towel is a duck.) Micah came out of a egg."

Micah: "Chocolate."

Mommy: "No chocolate for you."

Micah: "Sit on the potty chocolate."

Mommy: "Yes, you have to sit on the potty and pee pee or poo poo to get chocolate."

Micah: "Yiyi sit on big potty."

Mommy: "Yes she does."

Micah: "Yiyi get lot of chocolate."

Mommy: "...No, Yiyi doesn't get chocolate for sitting on the potty. She already learned how to use the potty. (but yes, she sure eats lot of chocolates. Don't you, Janice? keke)

Talking about their playdate at Kidstown before bedtime-

Mommy: "You have a fun day today at Kidstown?"

Micah: "Fun day. Big crane, open side, crane up."

Mommy: "There is also a firehouse and a jail. Should I put you in jail?"

Elias: "No."

Mommy: "Who goes to jail?"

Elias: "God lock up."

Mommy: "???" "God locks up the jail."

Elias: "God lock up jail."

Does he mean God gets lock up in jail or God locks up the jail?

After we prayed, just before we put them down for the night, Elias started whining: "pray. pray." This was the second night in a row. Preston and I told him that but we already prayed. He kept whining. We asked him to use his regular voice so we could understand him. After a couple minutes, he finally used his words.

Elias: "Pray to God." Awww....he wanted to say his own prayer! Hallelujah!

He thanked God for yogurt and apple. Micah jumped in and thanked God for shopping (we went grocery shopping today.) LOL~ so cute!

Homeschooling Week 3

Bible Story: This week Bible study was the story of "Moses and the Red Sea." We had blueberry jello for snack and pretended it was the water. Unlike their daddy, they like jello :)

Phonics/Reading/Writing: We continued to practice tracing lines and hold pencil correctly. This week, we traced lines from top to bottom. The worksheet they had for this exercise had sun, moon, star, and cloud on it, which tied in perfectly with their Sunday School story of Creation. We talked about who made day and night, sun, moon, star and cloud. We also had library story time, and the boys had found their new favorite book this week: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. That's almost all we read. I think I had the book memorized...

Physical movement: This week we had twins playgroup and went to Kidstown. They're still asking me to go everyday since Tuesday! With the nice weather, we also went to the park of course.

Arithmetic: Count 1 - 10. We traced our hands and counted our little fingers!

Readiness Skill: Elias went pee pee on the potty on Friday! He's wearing his big boy underpants most of the day now. He did it again this morning! So proud of him!!! We also took down their crib rails today because they both climbed into the crib today while they were playing in their room. It's about time anyway. This is very exciting for the Kutzner household!

God Made...

We had sort of a discussion of who and what we can thank God for during dinner tonight. The boys ignored me at first, as one ate his dinner and the other one played with his dinner. So I suggested a few things and people who we can thank God for. No respond from them...dinner continued.

A few minutes later...

Elias, as he was drinking water: "God make water."

Mommy: "Yes, God made water."

Micah, as he was sticking his fork into his straw: "God make nei nei (milk)."

Mommy: " Yes, God made nei nei... and moo moo, too."

Micah: "Moo moo drink chocolate nei nei."

Mommy: "......(trying not to laugh and knowing what he's up, too cuz he was asking for chocolate milk earlier) No, moo moo doesn't drink chocolate nei nei."

Homeschooling Week 2

Last week Bible Study was the story of Joshua & walls of Jericho:

We made horns one day, and then marched around the Jericho and blew the horns. Micah didn't care about the marching, and Elias just wanted to knick the wall down. They told me that our "walls/ceiling fall" when we blew the horns.

Phonics/Reading/Writing: We continued to practice tracing lines across and learned the names of different bugs (mommy was not a big fan on this lesson, but oh well.) They loved reading Lulu's Shoes (Lulu was a ladybug.)

Physical movement: We went to PoPo's house and practiced blowing bubbles and threw balls at her backyard, except Micah wanted me to throw the whole time :-/

Arithmetic: We knew how to count from 1-10...even though we liked to skip 4 and 5. We played with the number puzzle and learned to recognize the numbers 0-9.

Readiness Skill: We identified colors, which the boys got no problem doing, and grouped the same colors together.

What works for Elias usually doesn't work for Micah. Have explore and figure out ways Micah learns best.

Shout Out to Hubby!

Thank you hubby for giving up his only sleep-in day to watch the kids, so I can go to the WCMOTC Resale this morning!

There weren't much twins stuff this fall, but I still bought a lot of stuff. It took me three trips to get everything out to the van :P They're mostly toys and a few things for the new baby. I hoped I could control myself from showing them all the "new" toys I got. Birthday and Christmas couldn't come fast enough...okay, maybe not...not ready for the new baby just quite yet.

Homeschooling Week 1 Highlights

Tuesday cooking class was definitely the highlight of the week. We also took Thursday & Friday off :) as mommy's bbf came to town. We had a lot of fun with Auntie Mina (Mina 契媽).

On Thursday, we went to the train station to pick her up, and then we ate brunch together. Elias really really wanted to ride the train, too. Mommy said we would ride the train to Christkindlmarket this year. On Friday, we took a walk and went to buy mooncake in Chinatown! Mommy said we would celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival on the next full moon (Sept 22.) We couldn't wait for the next full moon and had a taste of the mooncake that night. It was really yummy!

Sleeping Nightmares

Nap time has always been a struggle for my boys, and they don't sleep anywhere else but their cribs. Don't get me wrong...I'm very very grateful that they sleep through mostly a 12-hr night at a young age and still do. I get my fair shares of mid-night crying here and there, but there's nothing to complaint about. Nap time, however, it's an on-and-off battle. Some days are better than others. Sleeping during traveling is worst. I'll get to that later.

Several months ago, Preston and I hit a brick wall on how to get them to nap. A pediatrician friend from church, suggested that we try separating them during nap time. So we told the boys that if they couldn't nap in their room together, they would be separeted. Oh, how they hated that idea. We borrowed a playpen from another friend from church, and put it in our room. We usually didn't have to actually put one of them in the playpen. The thought of separation was usually enough to get them quiet for nap time, but occasionally, we did have to physically remove one of them to our room. Nap time had improved ever since.

Last week was the first week after we came back from the long road trip from Canada, and we had no problem sleeping (they're catching up on their sleep.) However, this week they took turn crying during nap time...every day. Well, the playpen was still fold up from the Toronto trip. Being the lazy parents that we were, we just told them that one of them would come to mommy's bed and nap with mommy if they couldn't be quiet and sleep. Well, that backfired... Wednesday, the boys decided they would just go straight to our bed for nap time. Uh...NO. So I put them down in their cribs, and...crying was what I got, lots of crying. Thankfully, it worked again the next day.

So back to our Canadia (what Preston called Canada) trip. It was awful the first two night this time around. The past two times we went up to Canada, we borrowed a playpen from Aunt Wandy's neighbor and one from Christina's cousin. This time, because we already borrowed one from a friend here, we just brought it up with us, and expected aunt Wandy could borrow her neighbor's one for us like we always had. Well, never assumed anything. Her neighbor's grandchild had grew out of it, and she gave the playpen away. Instead, we had a toddler mattress. Being the insecure little toddlers that my boys were, they refused to go to sleep. Finally by mid-night, they finally lied down with the condition that we left the light on. Whatever right? as long as they would sleep. Well, the light kept Elias up all night long. He woke up crying 3 times, and kept Preston up all night (thank God I'm not a light sleeper.) And they woke up at 6:30am. O_0

The second night, either of them would sleep on the mattress. After trying out every idea that we could think of, we desperately called up my cousin, Rocky, to see if Christina could borrow the playpen from her cousin. They dropped it off at around 11pm, and we were able to get both of them to sleep with the light off! Christina, you were the life saver!!! Thank you! oh, and thanks for changing their diapers that day :P Couldn't imagine Rocky on diaper duty??? It would be a nightmare...I think.

Well, the boys are pretty much at a point where they're too long for playpens. Next time we travel, which is up in the air now after this trip, is on late October. It's time to train them to sleep in beds/mattresses. But I'm not ready the sleepless nights that I know I'll get :P

Day 3: Counting 1-5

not very successful yesterday on the counting lesson...will have to try again today.

Day 2: Preschooler Cooking Class

We went to a preschooler cooking class with our twin group in the morning! We colored and listened to a story about a moose eating all the muffins (oh no!) And then we got to make our own muffins!!! We all took turns helping the teacher put and mixed ingredients. Best of all, we got to taste the muffins. Yummy!

After cooking class, we had social time with our friends at a park. It was a lot of fun hanging out with other twins.

We learned about squares at our normal school time after our nap. Mommy gave us many different colors and sizes of squares to glue on our papers. We love glue sticks!!!

It was a fun-filled day!

School In Session!

Finally, we're starting "school" once again after a loooong vacation. This time around, they seems to grasp the concept more than earlier this year. After all, they're getting close to 3.

After breakfast, they picked a big people chair to sit on around the dining room table. We drew straight line with our fingers, learned about different kinds of ball (baseball, basketball, etc.), attempted to draw straight lines with crayons, and coloring the pictures of course. They did a pretty good job! Then we recited the Bible verses from Sunday school and the Homeschool curriculum. They got to pick a sticker for their charts. Stickers really seemed to excite them and encourage them to say the verses, especially for Micah. All that lasted about 10 minutes, and they had enough of school time. They put all the paperwork into their folders, which we recycled the library reading-to-me program as their school folders. Love recycling!

Even though it was only 10mins, it felt as if we accomplished something great together! Elias said it was fun, too!

Looking forward to tomorrow :) We're having a field trip to Whole Food for a cooking class tomorrow! That should be fun.

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend in Toronto is awesome! We were surrounded by friends, family, and food! Couldn't beat that :)

They were a bit overwhelmed by eating out almost every meal. By the second day, they're already screaming "no eat, no eat!" every time we pull into a parking lot. LOL~

The long ride back was a bit hashed for Elias. He was tired and his "pat pat tong tong" (butt hurt) from sitting too long in the van.

After a few days of rest at home, I think we're finally recoup from the trip. Time for school to start. I hope they'll cooperate with me. Nowadays, all I get is "NO" from them for EVERYTHING!!!

*Thank you very much for all my family for making time to come out to see us and to eat with us. Especially Rocky :) I know how busy you were, and you took a day off to spend time with your nephews and to have dinner with us were beyond kind. EM love you, Rocky KauFu!!!